Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1887-02-24
CRYOLITE MINING.
a Valuable Mineral Found Among Greer
lands ley Mountains.

lands Icy Mountains.
talked with two old-time sea-cap-
tains the other day. Oae of these
hardy navigators was tall, full-faced.
well-built, benevolent-looking man,
Captain Louchlan Mckay. In COM
mand of the Sovereign of the Seas,
one of the famous old clippers that
once made Americans proud of their
merchant marine, Captain Mckay left
New York for San Francisco in August,
1851; the freight money amounted to
$50. 900. very large sum to-day; bar
rel of flour in San Francisco in those
DAYS of gold fever sold for about S45.
Off Valparaiso. in a storm, Captain
McKay's ship was dismasted but rugged
I'D again. and reached her destination
in 1O2 days, which was quick pass
age. Discharging her cargo, the
gallant clipper sailed for Honolulu and
loaded with oil for New York, and made
the extraordinary time of eighty-two
days.
For 10000 miles she sailed without
lacking or wearing, and in ten consec-
utire DAYS she made $500 miles. But
the days of the noble old clippers are
gone, and l went to see this veteran of
the sea about the ships that trade with
Greenland. His are the only vessels
that 90 regularly to the far-off land of
Kane. They go out in ballast, for al
though Greenland imports wheat,
brandy, coffee, sugar, tobacco and fire
wood, it is not from this country. They
bring back metal termed cryolite,
which they obtain at a port called
Ivigtut, on the southwest coast of
Greenland. 1t is bleak country, even
in the short summer, during two
months of which, June and July, the
sun is always above the horizon.
Moses, stunted shrubs, dwarfish trees
and huckleberry bushes are about the
only vegetation, and the bare noun
tains in the grip of great glaciers and
the generally dead and desolate aspect
of the country make it appear as
strange and unreal as that gray corpse
of a world, the moon.
Cryolite looks like ice, and hence the
name signifies ice stone. 1t is all taken
to Philadelphia and is used in manu-
featuring soda, alum, I've, porcelain,
piano keys, door knobs, clock dials and
other articles. The seven banks in the
trade each carry about 800 tons of this
strange mineral and make fourteen
voyages in a year Last year they
brought s, 400 tons to this country Those
at Ivigtut are the only known cryolite
mines in the world. Specimens of this
mineral have been found in the Ural
Mountains and on Pixies Peak, but no
other actual mines but those in Green
land are known. 1t takes twenty days
to 90 to Ivigtut and thirty to return.
The Danish Government owns the
mines, and they are worked by a COM
pany that pays a royalty to that Gov
ernment.
The vessels in this trade are built I'M
usually strong in order to withstand the
rigors of that frozen region; they have
steel plates on the bow, iron on the stem
or forward part of the vessel, double
planks on the sides, and are filled in
with timber, and yet three years
ago one of the stanch barks
WIS ltSb III tIlt lCc thu olIS
that reached the open sea was never
afterwards heard from. The danger is,
not so much from icebergs as from the
great blocks of floating ice. or 'tiow
ice.' For eight months of the year, or
in the winter season. it is continuous
night, and then navigation is especially
dangerous. During the four summer
months of the year vegetation makes
rapid progress, but it is of dwarfish
character, and the tallest trees do not
exceed eighteen feet. The greatest
recorded cold of Greenland is IS deg.
below zero, and the greatest heat 50
deg. above, while the average for the
year is deg. above zero.
The little port whence the supply of
cryolite is obtained has a population of
about $50 miners and as many Esqui-
maux 1t is not place that invites
civilization. and the natives, debauch ed
by the whisky of the Caucasians till
the sale of that beverage has been in
terdicted, probably think they do not
lose much by living in what the civiliz-
ed usually regard as a lost land, cap
tive in the grasp of the Arctic terrors
that guard the awful approaches to
that mysterious and fatal objective
point of human ambition and daring
the North Pole.-O. W. Riggs. IN
Philadelphia Press.
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